"Loved being a Workaway host, but now Brexit has ended it in the UK"

When I first heard about Workaway, it sounded too good to be true, and maybe it was in some ways: a website where travelers could trade their skills for free accommodation felt like something that only happened to them. in the dreams. Perhaps that's what appealed to me - the triumph of community over money.

When I moved into a ramshackle cottage in Somerset without enough skills to do the renovations myself, or money to pay tradesmen, I turned to Workaway for help. Over the past year, this has kept me staying with workmen and friends.

My Workaway guests, sleeping in my trailer and spare room, came from all over the world and social spectrum, ranging in ages from their teens to their 50s. A healer from Kenya painted my bathroom pink; an Argentinian engineer assembled my second-hand chandeliers; a Seattle graffiti artist fixed my trailer and an Irish teenager tried to put pictures on my bedroom wall and instead hammered the plaster.

Most Workaways than I met were travellers, but some were Brits who opted out of the system or young digital nomads looking for alternative lifestyles. A writer from Boston, Lincolnshire helped me plaster my ceiling between writing video games in my trailer; a builder from Manchester helped me install a garden gate while trading cryptocurrency on the side.

Often guests were looking for something, taking sabbaticals or having midlife crises, and I felt privileged to be a step in their journey. I've had guests tell me how they got out of the care system, and others traveling between spiritual communities and retreats. I sat late with a teenager who spent endless evenings reading travelogues and poems to me, while artists opened their sketchbooks to show me their work, some of which is now on my walls. Some have left gifts, like the Italian guerrilla knitter who crocheted me a hat.

As a travel writer whose ability to travel has been greatly reduced during the pandemic, I savored how Workaway brought the world into my life. I was spoiled when guests from Italy, Kenya and Brazil cooked meals for me and I learned to cook more vegan dishes than I knew. We had dinners themed around the countries where the guests were from: on the French night we baked vegan cheese and on the Mexican night we argued over whether putting on a piñata was cultural appropriation or not.

And so it was with great disappointment that I opened a recent email from Workaway informing me that they were "suspending a large portion" of host listings British until further notice. "As travel and work visa regulations have become much stricter post-Brexit," the email continues, "particularly for...